1.1.8-Sarah1281
Brick!Club 1.1.8 After Dinner Philosophy I don’t know, I kind of like the senator. I mean, he’s an obvious straw man but he still seems kind of awesome. Not in an ‘is a good person and I’d want to know him in real life kind of way’ (though we are told that he’s really great to everyone he likes), though. I don’t know why I always like the unpleasant fictional characters but, well, it’s a pattern. People usually have the easiest time guessing who my favorite characters in any given medium will be. I do wonder why it is necessary for so many characters to go on long rambling monologues full of classical allusions that remind me more than anything how unrealistic this all is because, seriously, those are not very interesting. I read them but the wall of text is very intimidating and automatically makes it much less interesting than it could be. I kind of wonder what people think after the bishop delivers one of his zingers (also, his ‘sassiness’ is starting to feel like he’s being an asshole even though arguably he has the moral superiority in every situation. There’s really no need to be obnoxious just because other people don’t live up to your saintly standards, Bishop. That’s probably just me, though. I know how I’d feel if someone came up to me and started saying these kinds of things, no matter how un-saint-like I was behaving.). Maybe ‘the people’ are too stupid to get that he’s mocking and insulting them because ‘the people’ are always stupid and cruel and other negative descriptors (not that it’s their fault, it’s society’s fault, of course) but the senator is supposed to be an intelligent man. He cannot possibly fail to notice this. I also find the whole argument about how atheists must be bad people because they do not believe in God to be rather problematic in a different way than people usually point out. If someone believes that atheists must be bad people because of their lack of faith then what does it say about them? That they are only a good person who does good things because they believe that God is watching? Because it sure sounds like that’s what they’re saying. I kind of want to hurry up and get to the actual story but I know that this is just the first of many, many times we need to stop and talk about something else. At least the Bishop is an actual character and part of the narrative unlike certain other digressions I could mention. Commentary Doeskin-pantaloons I’m starting to agree with you about the Bishop being an asshole. I mean, he could have engaged in a reasoned argument on aetheism vs. religion, spritiualism vs. materialism with this guy, but he basically just delivered a snarky shut-down which is going to have them both leave the conversation feeling irritated but superior. Seriously, Bish, what do you hope to achieve? Sarah1281 (reply to Doeskin-pantaloons) It’s not just the senator, though. He does this kind of thing with everyone all the time and, of course, there’s his continued complete lack of concern for the wellfare of his two dependents. He’s not a complete asshole (he spends his life doing nothing but trying to help others and takes this far, far beyond reason) but he has his asshole tendencies in how he often relates to people who do not live up to his standards. And he never does satisfactorily explain what God has to do with having morals, either. Alasse-irena (reply to Sarah1281's reply) You are totally right. He means really well, but he also tends to be horribly self-centred (in a strange and magical way where someone wholly selfless can be self-centred), and he ends up with this point-of-view which sort of implies that if everyone were as saintly as him, God would look after them too and they could leave their doors unlocked… But as somebody said the other day, at least he’s being a dick for goodness.